Since their inception in 1997, charter schools have been at the center of some of the most
politically contentious debates in Ohio.

One side typically has been organized labor (the teacher unions), many Democrats, and citizens
groups believing they represent a threat to "public schools." The other side tends to be business -
represented by large profit-making school management companies, free-market- oriented individuals
(often Republicans), as well as activists of all political stripes who advocate for educational
equity.

Interest groups on both sides have poured money into political campaigns over the years and have
treated the politics of charter schools as a zero-sum game in which a gain by either side must come
at the expense of the other.

This polarization has led pro-labor Democrats to support anti-charter legislation, while
pro-business Republicans have fought to protect school operators and have resisted accountability
measures that they perceived as anti-charter. True to form, in his first budget in 2007 - and again
in his second budget in 2009 - Gov. Ted Strickland proposed legislation that would have banned
for-profit charter operators, cut charter school funding and buried the schools in costly
regulations.

The long political struggle around charter schools has hurt charter-school quality in the state,
made it difficult for Ohio to improve its charter law and retarded the power of charter schools to
meet their potential. According to new state charter law rankings by the National Alliance for
Public Charter Schools, Ohio's law now ranks No. 27 out of 41 states with charter laws.

In contrast, the states with the best charter laws - Minnesota, Florida, Massachusetts, Colorado
and New York - have made steady improvements over the past few years through bipartisan legislative
action. According to the alliance, these improvements include both the removal of constraints on
charters (for example, lifting of charter caps and moratoriums) and the strengthening of
charter-school accountability. Florida, for example, made the biggest jump in 2010, moving from
No.11 to No.2. Florida's rating leapt because lawmakers there embraced quality-control provisions
that included adopting model charter-school applications and requiring high-quality charter-school
application evaluation forms and performance-based charter contracts.

Republicans now control state government in Ohio and have promised to remove caps and
moratoriums on charters. This is a good start, but removing barriers to new schools must be
balanced by improvements to the state's charter quality-control mechanisms. Ohio should build on
the lessons from Florida and other high-performing charter states.

Specifically, Gov. John Kasich and legislative leaders can help promote charter-school quality
by crafting policies that ensure would-be school operators are carefully vetted in advance of
opening, that all schools are thoroughly monitored by responsible authorities for their academic
performance and that poor performers exit the market in timely fashion.

Failed schools should not be able to skirt academic accountability, whether they are traditional
district schools, virtual charter schools or charter schools operated by for-profit management
companies or nonprofit ones. The theories behind the school-choice movement - that parents will
vote with their feet and that the market will hold schools accountable - are imperfect and, in
reality, all too often leave poorly performing schools in place. Parental choice should be
encouraged but in parallel with rigorous accountability for results.

The states with the best charter schools also have the strongest charter-school laws. According
to Peter C. Groff, president and CEO of the alliance, "High-quality charter schools start with
strong charter-school laws. Our state charter law rankings describe how laws can ensure charter
schools are able to innovate in ways that boost student achievement while being held to high
standards of academic, fiscal and operational performance."

Kasich and Republican lawmakers should break the cycle of political acrimony around school
choice. This means resisting the temptation - and the encouragement they will surely receive from
some in the charter sector - to push for more charter schools while also scaling back on school
accountability. This would be a grave mistake.

The challenge facing education reformers in Ohio isn't so much to add yet more school options,
but to ensure that those available to families are, in fact, educationally sound. This is both the
lesson from Ohio's rocky history with charter schools and the lesson from states with
higher-performing charter schools.

Terry Ryan is vice president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute.